Abstract
In the coming decades, feeding the expanded global population nutritiously and sustainably will require substantial improvements to the global food system worldwide. The main challenge will be how to produce more food with the same or fewer resources and waste less. Food security has four dimensions: food availability, food access, food use and quality, and food stability. Among several other food sources, the potato crop is one that can help match all these constraints worldwide due to its highly diverse distribution pattern, and its current cultivation and demand, particularly in developing countries with high levels of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. After an overview of the current situation of global hunger, food security, and agricultural growth, followed by a review of the importance of the potato in the current global food system and its role played as a food security crop, this paper analyses and discusses how potato research and innovation can contribute to sustainable agri-food systems comparing rural and industrial agri-food systems with reference to food security indicators. It concludes with a discussion about the challenges for sustainable potato cropping enhancement considering the needs to increase productivity in rural-based potato food systems that predominate in low-income countries, while promoting better resource management and optimization in industrial-based agri-food systems considering factors such as quality, diversity of products, health impacts, and climate change effects. Research and innovation options and policies that could facilitate the requirements of both rural and industrial potato-based agri-food systems are described.
Highlights
The Current Situation of Global Food Security and Agricultural GrowthA growing earth population and the increasing demand for food are placing unprecedented pressure on agriculture and natural resources
Among important issues and challenges for potato crop at global level, the European Association for Potato Research (EAPR) Conference in 2017 identified three broad concerns: (i) food security and food safety for a growing population considering consumer’s needs, (ii) sustainable and environmentally friendly production addressing the question of natural resource management taking advantage of new technologies available such as breeding techniques, biocontrol, and big data management; and (iii) innovation in practice turning scientific results into products and processes to improve the performance of agri-food systems (Andrivon 2017)
As an attempt to analyse how to combine and score different research and innovation options according to their effect on sustainable agri-food system indicators and their relation to the four dimensions of food security, Table 3 suggests a list of key priority research and innovative technology options in the spheres of the terms G, M, and S of the performance equation
Summary
A growing earth population and the increasing demand for food are placing unprecedented pressure on agriculture and natural resources. Among important issues and challenges for potato crop at global level, the European Association for Potato Research (EAPR) Conference in 2017 identified three broad concerns: (i) food security and food safety for a growing population considering consumer’s needs, (ii) sustainable and environmentally friendly production addressing the question of natural resource management taking advantage of new technologies available such as breeding techniques, biocontrol, and big data management; and (iii) innovation in practice turning scientific results into products and processes to improve the performance of agri-food systems (Andrivon 2017). In low-income countries with mainly rural-based agri-food systems, sustainable intensification is a different challenge because it starts from a much lower level of inputs than in developed countries This is especially the case in Africa where the potential for increasing production through area expansion is diminishing, partly due to high population growth (Headey et al 2014). Consumption of fresh potatoes accounts for approximately two-thirds of the harvest and around 1.3 billion people eat potatoes as a staple food (more than 50 kg per person per year) including regions of India and China
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